Friday, February 25, 2011

Sephardic Film Festival

Posted by Ann Rabinowitz

Five Brothers (Comme les cinq doigts de la main)Opening Night Film at Festival

A great Sephardic cultural resource is the forthcoming 15th Annual New York Sephardic Jewish Film Festival, scheduled for March 10-16, 2011, at the Center for Jewish History in New York. Featured on opening night is the French drama by Alexandre Arcady “Five Brothers (Comme les cinq doigts de la main)” about an Algerian Jewish family which stars Patrick Bruel, Vincent Elbaz, Pascal Elbe, Eric Caravaca and Mathieu Delarive.

A preview can be seen below:

The festival’s thematic content encompasses actual historical/biographical pieces to drama and covers Jews (not all necessarily Sephardic) from Algeria, Cuba, Egypt, Ethiopia, France, India, Iraq, Israel, Morocco, and Spain. Three historical films are: “In the Beginning was a School” which covers the 150 years of the French educational organization Alliance Israelite Universelle; “Jubanos: The Jews of Cuba”; and “Next Year in Bombay” which is about the Bene Israel community.

Several of the biographical films deal with such topics as “Baghdad-Jerusalem-Fez”, a story about Yair Dalal, a wonderful Iraqi Jewish musician; “Ronit Elkabetz: “A Stranger in Paris”, about the actress and filmmaker and recipient of the American Sephardi Federation Pomegranate Award at the Festival”; “Zohra Elfassia”, the great Moroccan Jewish singer; “Vidal Sassoon the Movie”, regarding British self-made man; and “Yolande: An Unsung Heroine”, the story of an Egyptian-Jewish spy; and “I Had a Dream”, the story of Ethiopean Jewish leader Yona Bugale.